What's Right Got To Do With It?
by Outlanderzero
Summary: Joel has a little heart to heart with his baby brother regarding Ellie. {I may write an entire story about the events leading up to this conversation, but this is just a little teaser to give the tone of the main story, which will focus on Joel and Ellie, but for this particular part Ellie, herself, won't make an appearance. (Joel X Ellie) don't like, don't read.}


**Disclaimer: I do not own The Last Of Us or anything pertaining to that franchise. I also do not own the cover photo and whoever created that deserves a ton of credit because it is beautiful. The only thing I do own is this story idea. I wrote this because the idea of how love and relationships would work in a world like The Last Of Us is very fascinating to me from a story-telling standpoint. In no way do I encourage or condone the act of pedophilia (which is what this relationship would be in our world.) If you don't wan't to read about a fictional relationship in which a young woman and an older man are involved, don't read this story. I may write a much longer story, in the future, about the events leading up to THIS story, but updates will be slow. I'm always open to constructive criticism and I'm always trying to better my writing. I hope you enjoy! :)**

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The second Joel got through the door to Tommy's office he heard it slam and felt his brother's hands wrap themselves around his shirt collar and ram him into the wall, his shoulders digging into the hard, ridged tin.

"I see the way you look at her!" Tommy spat, "like you looked when you looked at every girl when you were seventeen . . . like you looked at Beth-"

With the fragility that can only come with being at the breaking point for too long, Joel howled and launched himself forward, throwing Tommy to the other side of the room. Tommy closed his eyes and braced himself, but nothing ever happened.

He opened his eyes to see Joel on his knees in front of him. There was no sound except the two of them breathing, and even that was almost too quiet to hear.

"I think you know, baby brother – that the fact that I'm still around means it is _nothing_ like Beth . . ."

Tommy's breaths were shaky as he leaned on the old locker in his office.

"It ain't right to fuck a teenager, Joel."

He cringed at the word, but didn't move to challenge him, "I never said I thought it was right, Tommy. God damn it; I can't remember the last time something felt _right_ "

Joel got up, keeping his head lowered, and slowly walked over to the window where a light sheet of fall rain was flowing. Tommy never saw his face. He started speaking, but he sounded very far away; far from this dam, and this town.

"It ain't right . . . the men that I've killed to be here today. It ain't right . . . the people that'dv tried to kill me. It ain't right that this outbreak happened and the world went to shit . . ." Tommy could see his knuckles beginning to whiten as he gripped the windowsill. He paused a moment and tilted his head back, as if he were trying to let the rain wash away his sins. Or maybe god. Neither one could quite reach, though.

" . . . And it wasn't _right_ . . ." Joel continued, " . . . that Sarah died in my arms."

He finally turned around and Tommy thought, for a moment, that maybe the rain had reached him, but then he realized that it wasn't rain. A small smile graced his worn features, and he looked more at peace than Tommy had ever seen.

"You think I'm old, Tommy, and you're right. I am old. I'm old, and I'm tired. But you know something? Ellie's old too. So're you . . . so's Maria . . . and so's every person who's still alive in this world, today. The babies, too."

he chuckled for a moment, "Ellie . . ." he said in no more than a whisper. ". . . Ellie helped me realize that."

Joel still stood in front of the large window, and if Tommy looked beyond him he could see his own reflection in the same window. His own lines and creases and scars that shouldn't be there for another 20 years.

"I don't argue with you, baby brother, that what we have isn't right. But neither is what you and Maria have, neither."

Tommy started to protest but Joel beat him to it.

"You know it's true. I still remember like it was yesterday, the kinda girl you always went for. Quiet, sweet. The kind that knew her skills inside the home so you could flaunt yours outside. And now look at'cha. I ain't sayin you don't care for her, but you can't look me in the eye and tell me it's right. If the world hadn't gone to shit, and if I still had Sarah – " He choked at the name. " –If I still had Sarah and one day we happened to cross paths with Ellie," He sat down on the edge of his brothers desk. ". . . I wouldn't give'er a second glance. And she wouldn't give me one. We ain't soulmates, Tommy, but we are alive. For better or for worse we're alive, and we're old. That girl – _woman;_ that woman has fought harder, and faster, and stronger than any one of us here. She had a place to get to and she got there. I tried to fight it for a hell of a long time, Tommy, I did. But she came to _me_. She came to me in the night, in my bed and told me what she wanted. She's seventeen, Tommy, and I don't think it's right to tell her it ain't what she wants. Not me, and not you. That woman's been through too much to have a couple'a old men telling her she doesn't know what she wants."

Tommy had been silent this entire time, and he still didn't say a word. So Joel continued.

"She knows it ain't right, too. But it makes it a little nicer to get up in the mornin; to wake up next to somebody you like. And sometimes, when the air, and the sun, and the day falls just right on that – that smiling face I just – it don't seem like right matters that much anymore"


End file.
